SURGERY IS INNUNDATED AS 1,000 PATIENTS LEFT WITHOUT GP

BY AISHA IQBAL MEDICAL staff in Ascot have criticised health chiefs for their "delayed" and "slow" response to the retirement of a local GP - which has left one surgery innundated and a thousand patients still without a doctor.

Dr William McMath, the only doctor at Little Firs Surgery, The Avenue, retired at the age of 65 after practicing in Ascot for 35 years.

His retirement left his 2,500 patients needing to be placed with other surgeries.

Many of the patients were allocated to the nearby Green Meadows surgery, which has more than 10,000 patients on its lists already, but staff there say they were still being allocated patients despite being forced to close the new patients register.

Margaret Little, Practice Manager at the Green Meadows Surgery, said: "Green Meadows has taken on 421 patients so far over a three week period.

"This is on top of our current list size of 10,426 patients.

"This has caused a tremendous backlog of work for

the entire health care team at the surgery but we are

doing our utmost to maintain the smooth running of the surgery.

"The Windsor Ascot and Maidenhead Primary Care Trust and Thames Valley Primary Care Agency are the bodies responsible for the transferring of patients to alternative surgeries following the retirement of Dr

McMath.

"The arrangement for this appears to have been so delayed by them that the transition for patients has not run smoothly.

"Green Meadows are very unhappy with the distress this has caused to our current patients with doctor/nurse access.

"We were forced to close our lists for the first time in living memory after taking on 300 patients in two weeks.

"However, patients were then still being allocated to us."

Retiring GP Dr McMath said that the PCT had been "a

little slow" in dispersing his

list and that 2,500 was "an awful lot" of patients to deal with.

He told the Times: "I wrote to the PCT telling them I was retiring but that I wished the surgery to continue to run, with me assisting.

"Doctors and GPs are in short supply and I would have been happy to work on as an assistant.

"But there were a couple of meetings and I was told no, we will disperse the list.

"2,500 is an awful lot to disperse and they have been a little slow. 1,500 patients have been placed.

"It's a case of the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing."

A spokesman for the Windsor, Ascot and Maidenhead Primary Care Trust said the PCT was aware of the "extra pressure" on nearby surgeries and was working hard to relieve that pressure.

"The PCT recognises that this change is putting extra pressure on busy practices which are already operating close to capacity," he said.

"This is due to a shortage of service options, GPs, other practice staff and available premises.